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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:15 pm Post subject: The clear Republican message |
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As it goes, many say that the Democrats don't have a "clear message" for "the people".
If that is, in fact, the case, then what is the "clear" GOP message? |
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TheFonz
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Location: North Georgia
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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This is the message --- obfuscation (and how even the word, lends meaning!!!).
Confuse through FEAR
There is a enemy, he is everywhere, she might be who you are sleeping with, he could be the mailman or a mullah -- be alert. Vote for us, the barbarians are at the gates...
Reminds me of that great poem of Cavafy -- Coetzee wrote a great book which like Camus' The Plague, is a primer about post 911 - Republicanism, Waiting for the Barbarians. Here is the poem, a kind of battle cry for the GOP.
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Waiting for the Barbarians
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are to arrive today.
Why such inaction in the Senate?
Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?
Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
What laws can the Senators pass any more?
When the barbarians come they will make the laws.
Why did our emperor wake up so early,
and sits at the greatest gate of the city,
on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
And the emperor waits to receive
their chief. Indeed he has prepared
to give him a scroll. Therein he inscribed
many titles and names of honor.
Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
today in their red, embroidered togas;
why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
why are they carrying costly canes today,
wonderfully carved with silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are to arrive today,
and such things dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't the worthy orators come as always
to make their speeches, to have their say?
Because the barbarians are to arrive today;
and they get bored with eloquence and orations.
Why all of a sudden this unrest
and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).
Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?
Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And some people arrived from the borders,
and said that there are no longer any barbarians.
And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were some kind of solution.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1904) |
DD |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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Loud and clear.
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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daskalos
Joined: 19 May 2006
Location: The Road to Ithaca
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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| TheFonz wrote: |
| Straight from the horses mouth. |
You know, I could have sworn it was coming from the other end. |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Provides incentives for temporary workers to return to their home countries and families. |
A euphenism if ever I saw one... |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:57 am Post subject: |
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By the way, what is the Democratic Party's position on something apparently so easy to take a position on as the Iraqi War? (The answer is: it does not have one.)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5484075&ft=1&f=3
The Republicans won in 2004. If one is interested in understanding their winning message, perhaps it might be best to start by reading their actual message.
http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf
In any case, if we can reduce the Republican message down to one word -- that is, "fear," or Ddeubel's more diabolical- or shrill-sounding "confuse through fear" -- then perhaps I can suggest a few words to consider if we were to similarly reduce the Democratic message: "garbled," "inconsistent," or perhaps, since Moore and company have been brought into this, "irrational," "emotional," or "hysterical."
If the Republicans are playing on and hyping fear and paranoia, deliberately attempting to confuse us through fear, then the Democrats are irresponsibly using people like the "sanctified" 9/11 widows that Coulter recently attacked, and others like Sheehan, to create their own hyperbole for their own partisan and perhaps demagogic purposes (using words like "liar" and "murderer" when other words are more accurate and, indeed, much more appropriate in political discourse in a democratic system).
In this angry and intolerant environment, however, people are not productively exchanging views with each other or even sending clear messages of their own. Most of what we are seeing is direct or indirect attack, usually personally directed, exaggeration and mischaracterization of opposing positions, and worse: ridicule of the other side.
In such a polarized and politicized environment, it is increasingly difficult to be sure of anyone's position or message.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:50 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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Apologist.
How's that for one word?
For the record, goof, parties are not important, people are.
For the record, goof, when a "party" has a "message" it simply means 98% percent of the people in the party have just lied about what they believe.
For the record, goof, the "Democratic" response is whatever each democrat decides it is. (You see, the fact that each HAS an opinion used to be a GOOD thing is the deity-forsaken wasteland that the US is fast becoming.)
For the record, goof, thinking there can only be two perspectives on this is idiotic. Even for an ivory tower-bred milquetoast such as yourself.
For the record, you label others. YOU call them names and disparage. So, what, exactly, is your point? You actually say that if someone is a murderer, we should not actually say so in "political discourse."
And you seem to expect to be taken seriously.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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Of course, what I say above is not new.
Here is how Thucydides describes a similar distortion in political discourse that he witnessed during the Peloponnesian War, especially after civil war broke out in Corcyra and elsewhere...
| Thucydides wrote: |
...To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect...
As a result of these revolutions, there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world...If [one party] made a reasonable speech, the [opposing party], so far from giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical effect...Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion..... |
Book III, 82-83.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher,
I disagree wholely with the opinion of Thucydides and how it applies to the U.S. "democratic" system.
The problem with the U.S. democratic system is not that dialogue is polarized and there are
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| two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion..... |
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The problem is that there is only one camp and all the rest is semantics, image and hollow words. This is why the U.S. can't be considered "democratic" -- its populace is uninformed and almost non-participatory. The real issues are not known by the general population, nor engaged by them. The leaders do not come from the general public but a culled "class". Chomsky talks at length on this when making his "failed" state arguement. Other commentators and poll after poll has shown that the general public has no political awareness other than vague and unthinking feelings about those they elect. Atleast in the Greek or Athenian world, there was public debate and people were VERY informed. This was/is democracy.
I don't care for either party, the wurlitzer itself is broken and playing a crooked tune.............
DD |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
Gopher,
The problem is that there is only one camp and all the rest is semantics, image and hollow words. This is why the U.S. can't be considered "democratic" -- its populace is uninformed and almost non-participatory...
Atleast in the Greek or Athenian world, there was public debate and people were VERY informed. This was/is democracy.
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ROFL. The Athenian populace during the Pelopennesian War were very informed? ROFL. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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And so another persistent characteristic of the anti-U.S., U.S.-centric syndrome is revealed. It goes something like this:
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| America and Americans must always be contrasted in a most unfavorable way with respect to previous democracies and their citizens, with little attention paid to actual conditions in said democracies... |
In any case, I think that, at the very least, most Athenian leaders and many of her citizens would have recognized antiAmericanism for what it is. After all, Thucydides -- an Athenian -- explains and illustrates well enough how most of the Greek world came to despise Athens in the decades following the Persian wars, and how, once the Peloponnesian War began, most of Greece saw Sparta as a liberator.
And while I am quoting History of the Peloponnesian War and suggesting parallels, see the remarks by one of Thucydides's anonymous Athenian citizens addressing the Spartan assembly on the eve of her declaration of war against Athens...
| Anonymous Athenian Citizen wrote: |
...Certainly you Spartans, in your leadership of the Peloponnese, have arranged the affairs of the various states so as to suit yourselves. And if, [during the Pentecontaetia], you had gone on taking an active part in [what remained of the Persian wars] and had become unpopular, as we did, in the course of exercising your leadership, we have little doubt that you would have been just as hard upon your allies as we were, and that you would have been forced either to govern more strongly or to endanger your own security.
So it is with us...And we were not the first to act in this way. Far from it. It has always been a rule that the weak should be subject to the strong; and besides, we consider that we are worthy of our power. Up till the present moment you, too, used to think that we were; but now, after calculating your own interest, you are beginning to talk in [moralistic terms]...Certainly we think that if anyone else was in our position it would soon be evident whether we act with moderation or not. Yet, unreasonably enough, our very consideration for others has brought us more blame than praise...
...Certainly [the Greek city-states subject to Athens's sphere of influence] put up with much worse sufferings than [those they presently complain of and denounce under Athens's leadership] when they were under the Persians, but now they think that our government is oppressive...But on one point we are quite certain: if you were to destroy us and take over our empire, you would soon lose all the goodwill which you have gained... |
Book I, 72-78.
Apparently, people simply -- and bitterly -- resent hegemons. It is universal in recorded human history -- be it Athens, Rome, the Spanish, the British, or the U.S. today. The explanation for the tone and content of our friend Ddeubel's posts hardly need probe deeper than that. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 6:38 am Post subject: ... |
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| And so another persistent characteristic of the anti-U.S., U.S.-centric syndrome is revealed. |
Goph, you clearly deal in labels; so, how do you label yourself?
(one question) |
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